


Eternal Present

by HopefulNebula



Category: Alphas
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Introspection, Memories, Missing Scene, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 04:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/pseuds/HopefulNebula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't the things she can't remember that really get to Kat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eternal Present

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clare_dragonfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare_dragonfly/gifts).



It isn't the things she can't remember that really get to Kat.

She gets by fine with notes to herself and Rosen's camera. And the more she learns about Rosen's team, the more she thinks she might be better off without carrying her past around with her. (She's not sure exactly what her opinion used to be, or how many things she may have learned that contradict her current one, but she's used to taking things one day at a time.) She's as used to not remembering things as she is used to breathing, it's just the state she lives in.

The problem is when she knows something is important and has no idea what that something is. She had to learn everything from somewhere, after all. While it doesn't matter to her how she learned muai thai or why she can read circuit diagrams, there are things she knows that she _needs_ to know.

She doesn't even know whether Kat is her real name. She and Rosen have tried to find out, she remembers that much, and she has video and notes for later. They'd spent the better part of a day trying to find any bit of background they could check. But there had been nothing. No missing persons reports for any Kat or Kathryn or Katrina or Katie who fit her description, no fingerprints, nothing beyond vague memories of lying to cover what few pieces of identity she had.

("This doesn't mean Kat isn't your real name," Rosen had said.

"Is this where you tell me that it's real enough because it's the name I know now?" Kat had asked, the day's frustration straining her voice.

Rosen hadn't flinched. "No, you know that better than I do. There are names we're not thinking of, and there may not have been any reports filed."

"Well," Kat had announced, "at least in a few weeks I'll forget the idea that there's nobody out there who misses me.")

And then there's the question of _why_ she remembers what she does. Not the "how do I walk" questions, she knows the difference between procedural and biographical memory, but how does she know what a doctor's office looks like without having seen a doctor before?

Kat looks down at her notes and wonders how many times she's thought this before.

"Are you trying to remember things again?" Gary asks, and Kat jumps because she'd been the only person in the office and she can't have been here that long, could she? Gary, of course, barely pauses. "If you can't, that's okay, I can remind you of things."

Kat has to smile at that. "Thanks," she says, and Gary grins back at her.

"I'm putting away the shipment of office supplies now," he says. "It'll be a surprise before anyone gets here in the morning. Do you want to help?"

There isn't anything Kat would like better.

If all she has is a present, she might as well do something useful with it.


End file.
